Offices et papauté (XIVe–XVIIe siècle). Charges, hommes, destins (review)

This large volume is the product of two conferences, at the Archivio Segreto Vaticano in 2001 and at the École Française de Rome in 2002. The topic is the offices and officers of the papal administration, especially those councils and officials that oversaw the papal state and, to a lesser extent, the diplomatic corps. Many of the papers discuss the structure of the administrative offices of the papacy and their development; other papers are prosopographical, that is, they offer lists of those who served in a particular office, along with information on their origins, preparation, and administrative careers. This is detailed, informative history of the administration of the papal state, a field much cultivated by Italian, French, and German scholars in the past thirty-five years, but generally ignored by English-language historians. The volume presents thirty-four papers: seventeen in Italian, twelve in French, and five in German. Many studies include useful appendices and tables. The volume offers short summaries of the articles, written in the same language as the articles, but lacks information about the contributors.

The editors open the volume with an introduction that reviews briefly previous scholarship on the development of the Renaissance state, a term proposed by Federico Chabod fifty years ago, although not used by the editors. Instead, they argue that the administration of the papal monarchy is an interesting case study of the development of the state from the Middle Ages into modern times. Andreas Rehberg writes about the relations between the curia and the city government of Rome, noting that they differed over taxes, and that beginning with the two Medici popes (Leo X, 1513–21, and Clement VII, 1523–34), the papacy gained greater control over the city while Roman nobles harvested more curial offices. This article is an exception to the pattern of the volume, because it discusses the political consequences of administrative actions to a limited degree. Christoph Weber writes about the Segnatura di Grazia and the Segnatura di Giustizia, which were growing in importance and becoming incubators for future bishops and cardinals. Maria Antonietta Visceglia discusses the familiari of the pope and the increasing number and growing importance of the offices they filled.

Silvano Giordano offers biographical information on the governors of the papal state during the pontificate of Paul V (1605–21). Massimo Carlo Giannini provides information on the treasurers-general of the papal treasury and their careers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Andrea Petrini lists the offices under Paul II (1464–71) on the basis of a newly discovered document. Irene Fosi discusses the distribution of justice in the papal state. In a short article Antonio Menniti Ippolito comments on the mobility and immobility in curial offices in the seventeenth century. Knut Schulz demonstrates that Italians increasingly replaced non-Italians in the curia in the sixteenth century, whereas Alexander Koller lists the nuncios to the Holy Roman Emperor from 1560 to 1648. Andrea Gardi offers a survey of the changing administrative role of papal legates governing parts of the papal state from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Nicole Reinhardt discusses Bolognese men filling offices in Rome and Romans doing the same in Bologna.

Ralf Lützelschwab, Armand Jamme, Olivier Poncet, Étienne Anheim, Bernard Barbiche, Brigide Schwarz, Pierre Jugie, Germain Butaud, and Philippe Genequand focus on the Avignonese papacy. Some contributors offer studies of individual office-holders; see the articles of François-Charles Uginet, Germano Gualdo, Angela Quattrochi, and Francesca Boris. There are additional, sometimes short, articles by Bruno Laurioux, Birgit Emich and Wolfgang Reinhard, Birgit Emich alone, Manuel Vaquero Piñeiro, Giampiero Brunelli, Simona Feci, Stefano Tabacchi, and Stefan Brüdermann.

All of the articles are documented with an abundance of archival, manuscript, and secondary references. A neophyte scholar in this field will probably find every important study...